


artificial blush

by gaymumbling



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: First Meeting, Fluff, Love at First Sight, M/M, Magic AU, Witch AU, bc thats the Mood for this fic, do yourself a favor and read this while theres a candle burning on the desk next to you, this is like super gay tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-16 22:49:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15447564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaymumbling/pseuds/gaymumbling
Summary: “Great. Well, in that case, I grabbed it first so it should be mine,” he responded with a certain glint in his eye that just begged Jisung to argue.“Yeah, well, I saw it first.”“Okay, how could you possibly prove that?”or the love-at-first-sight witch au that no one asked for but everyone wanted





	artificial blush

Jisung was bored. He cleaned his room, rearranged the trinkets on his desk, organized his bookshelves, put his journals in chronological order, color-coded his candles, swept his kitchen, and took out the trash, but none of these chores cured that lazy Sunday afternoon feeling. It was a pretty nice day; a bit cool compared to the sweltering heat of the past few summer days, so Jisung decided to take a walk. He filled in his eyebrows, threw on some concealer, changed some of his earrings, and hit the road. 

He played a little game with himself while he was out and about, and named as many different plants as he could and tried to remember their magical properties as he went. His neighbors had cute flower gardens with marigolds and snapdragons, and some had rose bushes, zucchini plants, and every so often he spotted a hibiscus or hydrangea. The gardens were nice and all, but his favorites were the pieces of land between the houses where the grasses and wildflowers were allowed to grow freely. He’d always loved wildflowers for their beauty and persistence, and tall grasses because of the hideouts they provided for small animals. The way they moved like the sea when a breeze came along reminded Jisung of his time on the coast, and sometimes he swore he could smell salt in the wind’s coattails.

The young witch meandered through the streets and subconsciously made his way toward the busier streets that connected his sleepy neighborhood to the business district. Those roads were lined with commercial as well as locally-owned stores and shops. He knew where everything was, the big-name grocery stores and pharmacies were to the left of the center of town, and the smaller, cozier (mostly wiccan-owned) knickknack stands and plant shops were to the right. Jisung found himself to be much more comfortable on the right side of town, surrounded by people like himself and breathing in the warm and spicy scent of magic that hung in the air like mist in the morning. Of course, there are some wholesale stores whose aisles were dusted with a bit of magic -- Jisung himself often frequented the candle section of the Home Goods store across the street from a sub shop -- but the one store that local witches patronized the most was the Goodwill about halfway down the second street to the left.

One could find everything from candleholders to antique lamps to eccentric clothing choices in Goodwill, which surely attracted more witches than the company bargained for. Almost every person Jisung passed in the store showed some hint of wiccan relation, from the runes adorning one girl’s hands to the wand sticking out of another boy’s boot, to the heavy scent of magic emanating from an older woman like perfume.

Jisung smiled to himself. It wasn’t every day he was comfortable in a big-name store with employees that worked in shifts and owners that didn’t offer repeat customers tea, but this particular Goodwill was a place he could go to browse when bored or run in for an emergency jar when his favorite glassware store was closed during the shopkeeper's bathroom break. Even if it wasn’t an emergency, there was always an empty space on a witch’s shelf for new jars and trinkets which was why Jisung immediately wandered to the housewares section of the brightly lit concrete warehouse, stopping only to inspect a sweater that caught his eye. Upon touching it, he could all but feel the protection charm woven into the thick fabric, and that combined with the fun pattern and slightly oversized cut was enough to convince him to buy the garment.

With his sweater in tow, he moved on to peruse the small glass bottles they had on display. He picked up a few to test their weight and shape in his hand, and shifted others to the right or left to get a better view of what was behind them. He was always drawn to the clear ones, but every so often a tinted glass would catch his eye. That day, a small rose colored  vase with a triangular base beckoned his reach. Unfortunately, another patron of the store felt the same pull toward the object because Jisung’s hand was not met with cool glass when he made contact; instead he felt the back of a warm, soft hand. He felt rings on the stranger’s fingers. His eyes traveled up the arm to see the cuff of a collared shirt rolled up with the sleeve of a thin black sweater. Jisung’s gaze landed on the delicate silver chain wrapped around the stranger’s neck. He could just _feel_ his eyes get wider and lips part when he finally made his way to looking at the other’s face. His first thought was, “this boy has to be a witch.”

The second was, “and he’s absolutely gorgeous.”

He found himself having trouble focusing on one aspect of the boy at once, so his gaze jumped from his eyes to his cheekbones to his lips to the piercings adorning his ears and back up to his eyes. The boy’s light auburn hair was pushed back to reveal his forehead and immaculately groomed eyebrows. One of them quirked up slightly, which broke Jisung from his trance.

“So, are we going to have a staring contest to decide who gets to keep it?” The stranger asked, nodding toward the bottle still clasped between both of their hands.

“I- uh, no?” Jisung said.

“Great. Well, in that case, I grabbed it first so it should be mine,” he responded with a certain glint in his eye that just begged Jisung to argue.

“Yeah, well, I saw it first.”

“Okay, how could you  _ possibly _ prove that?”

“I don’t know, I just know I did.” The boy didn’t look impressed. “I had to move the things in front of it in order to reveal it, so I must’ve seen it first.”

“But I have my hand on it, and by the way, you are crushing the rings right into my fingers and I would appreciate if you would stop.”

Jisung immediately let go, but found his palm to be cold from the loss of contact so he shoved it into his pants pocket. He realized too late that by removing his hand, he surrendered the glass to the stranger and let out a huff of breath.

“What’s wrong?” He asked with mock sincerity, the two words smug and dripping with sweet venom.

“It’s just that the beautiful ones always get their way,” Jisung replied, suddenly confident.

“If that were the case, you would be the one walking away with this... thing,” the stranger said, holding the vase up to the light so the pink color of the glass was thrown back in his face. The artificial blush was all it took to crumble Jisung’s courage and turn him back into a stuttering mess.

Until then, the only clues Jisung had as to whether or not the other boy was a witch was the way he dressed and accessorized. One does not wear rings set with bloodstone and amethyst if one does not know how to mix the properties of gemstones to make a worthwhile cocktail; in fact Jisung was surprised he hadn’t thought of that combination earlier. The calm and intuitive amethyst worn together with confident bloodstone was surely partly responsible for the aura around the stranger. But that was not the only thing that gave away the boy’s wiccan nature.

For their whole conversation, he had hidden it well; the absence of the scent of magic had briefly thrown Jisung off track. Now, he knew he had been looking for the wrong thing. When the pale pink light was cast over the boy’s face, illuminating his eyes, he must have let his guard down because for a moment, it was there. Not the spicy, warm, or heavy scent of magic that Jisung was used to, but a slightly different scent seeped into the space around the boy. His magic was more graceful than the old magic that had settled upon the small town, and held a fresh yet smoky aroma. There was still a certain weight to it, and Jisung could imagine holding the boy’s hand and running his fingers through the redolence like he would through a bubbling stream.

But really, he didn’t have to imagine it because their hands had been touching for nearly the whole time they had known of each other so far.

“So, what were you planning to use it for?” Jisung asked.

“I think it would be great for holding small flowers to dry, no?” he said, bringing it closer to his eyes to better inspect it.

“Sure, or as decoration.”

“You know, I might use it to dry peonies, or carnations, or gardenias...” He listed names of flowers, gesturing with his hands with every new name he mentioned. He trailed off, and looked at Jisung expectantly, the aura of brashness momentarily lowered.

“Those flowers are all much too big to fit in such a small vase, I was thinking more of lily of the valley or bluebells.” Jisung was confused, until he saw the look on the other’s face. Of course, a boy who knows how to mix gemstones should also know how to mix flowers, and surely he already knew that a peony bloom has a circumference nearly as tall as the tiny vase over which the two had been fighting. Jisung saw the other witch quirk the same perfect eyebrow as he did earlier, which Jisung returned with a knowing smirk.

“Did you... just ask me out? Through flowers?” He asked.

“As a matter of fact, I did,” He said, his face breaking out into a grin. “I’m Minho.”

“Jisung. And I would love to.”

**Author's Note:**

> peony - romance, prosperity, bashfulness  
> carnation - fascination, new (recent) love  
> gardenia - joy, purity, old-fashioned love
> 
> Thank you for reading! I have been very soft for minsung and magic aus lately so i had to write my own.  
> I had a lot of fun writing this, especially because (i feel) it's a lot more descriptive than most of my other writing. I think I'll play with integrating this kind of detail in my fics in the future ayy  
> should i write a part two for this? do you love minsung as much as i do? let me know in the comments below (comments and kudos are my nourishment blease)  
> also i am on tumblr as gaymumbling and i have a kpop sideblog as ih8menow ;)


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